


Spit Spot!

by starkadder



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Fluff, Mary Poppins - Freeform, utter fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-05 02:45:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6686047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkadder/pseuds/starkadder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura Hollis is nineteen years old and really doesn't need a governess any more. She particularly does not need the kind of governesses her father keeps hiring - fusty, tired old women who think that taking her to tea with that grouchy Carmilla Karnstein next door is some kind of treat.</p>
<p>But then Miss Perry arrives, flying down with the East Wind in her umbrella and sliding up the bannister of No. 307 Cherry Tree Lane. With the girls being whisked off to shops that sell stars, dances with their own shadows and all manner of strange personages, Laura begins to think that governesses might not be that awful after all - and maybe Carmilla isn't so bad either.</p>
<p>Based on the Mary Poppins books by P.L. Travers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The East Wind

If you want to find Cherry-Tree Lane all you have to do is ask at the sign of the Shunned House. The barman will scratch his head thoughtfully, and then he will point his huge finger and say: "Sure, dude. Like, first to your right, second to your left, sharp right again, and you're there in no time. How awesome is that?"

And sure enough, if you follow his directions exactly, you will be there in no time — right in the middle of Cherry-Tree Lane, where the houses run down one side and the Park runs down the other and the cherry-trees go dancing right down the middle.

If you are looking for Number Three Hundred and Seven — and it is quite possible that you will be, for this story starts in that particular house — you will very soon find it. But for reasons you will find out by the end, you might not find Laura Hollis.

However we are _not_ at the end yet, and on the particular day when this story begins you would have found her straight away at Number Three Hundred and Seven sitting at her window looking out onto the row of cherry trees and wondering when Spring was going to come so that they would shake themselves into pink blossom.

She was also sulking a little because her father had gone out to put an advertisement in tomorrow’s _Times_ asking for a new governess. From this you might be thinking that Laura was a little girl, but you would be wrong. Or, to be more precise, you would be right but only in one sense. For while Laura was indeed a very little girl and had to get a stool to stand on before she could take down her hat boxes from their place at the top of the wardrobe, she was not a very young girl. She was nineteen years old, and so no doubt you begin to understand her frustration over her father’s insistence on still needing a governess.

Nineteen is a little too old to be coddled, but Mr. Hollis liked Safety. Safety was a word he always used with a Capital Letter at the front and everywhere he went he was determined to be Safe. And so, pondering deeply the best kind of governess for his daughter, he reasoned that the Safest governesses were those who were very experienced and especially those who were very experienced at looking after the smallest and most delicate girls. And so it was that he provided for Laura an endless stream of fussy old women who delighted in treating her like an invalid and insisted she put two pairs of stockings on when going out in the cold. For a treat, they took her to tea with Carmilla Karnstein, who lived next door.

Now, Carmilla Karnstein was a very different kind of person. She was twenty-one and lived at Number Three Hundred and Eight Cherry-Tree Lane with her mother. Carmilla’s mother lived a life of Precision to the same degree that Laura’s father lived a life of Safety – and just like Laura yearned for adventure, Carmilla loved disorder.

You might have thought that this would make the girls natural friends, but in truth their personalities were so different that they never could see eye to eye (although Carmilla was quite small as well and would have had no difficulty looking Laura in the eye were she not trying to avoid her). Carmilla was grumpy and lazy and called Laura names. She made Laura very angry and tea with the two of them was one big sulk. But the governesses were always so exhausted by Laura’s running around that they dozed off in their chair and woke up in the confident belief that Laura had enjoyed a lovely time with her friend.

With considerable ingenuity and inventiveness Laura saw off governess after governess. Nanny Callis resigned after losing Laura in the park. Nanny Straka quit when her scheme to go boating on the lake resulted in her old trouble coming back. Nanny Spielsdorf sought retirement following the Incident with the Fish. Mr. Hollis started to get grey hairs and the gentleman at the _Times_ office saw him come in so often to place a new advertisement that they became close friends and Mr. Hollis was named godfather to his son.

So Laura sat there listening to the sound of the East Wind blowing through the bare branches of the cherry-trees in the Lane. The trees themselves, turning and bending in the afternoon light, looked as though they had gone mad and were dancing their roots out of the ground.

She was just seeing somebody walk down the street and thinking that it might be her father when she noticed somebody else. That somebody was holding an open umbrella in her hand even though it wasn’t raining, and the reason she seemed to be holding it was that she was flying. The East Wind lifted her up by the canopy of the great black umbrella and carried her along at a phenomenal speed so that though Laura had seen her first far off over the park, she landed neatly on Cherry-Tree Lane just as Mr. Hollis was opening the gate and waving at Laura in the window.

She – for Laura could see now clearly that she was a she – wore a sensible dark blue coat and neat black hat stuck through with pins. Her hair had been gathered up under it, but the wind had blown one or two wisps of it loose, and Laura saw that it was reddish and curly.

“Good morning,” said Mr. Hollis, who had noticed her approaching his own gate, but had not observed the mode of her appearance behind him.

“Good morning,” said the strange woman. “I am here concerning the position.”

“The – the position?” Mr Hollis said.

“As governess. I am Miss Perry.” The woman said this as if she were expected.

“As governess? But I only just-”

“You are Mr. Hollis? This is Number Three Hundred and Seven Cherry-Tree Lane? That is Laura in the window?” Miss Perry pointed right up at Laura’s face, though Laura had not seen her take a single glance at the window.

“Well – yes,” he flustered. “You’d better come in.” Mr. Hollis led her up the garden path and in through the front door. Laura immediately hurried out of her room and came to the top of the stairs to take a closer look at this remarkable person.

Inside the hall Laura watched her take off her hat, carefully dropping the pins into the large carpet bag carried in her left hand. Freed from their constraints her long curly hair unfurled into a torrent. She hooked her umbrella on the hatstand and turned to Mr. Hollis.

“I shall expect every second Tuesday off,” she informed him, “and I must insist on a room with a view of the park. Two guineas a week plus room and board. That’s settled then.” she concluded to his baffled expression.

“References-” he began, trying to keep up.

“I make a point never to give them. Now: as to plans for tea-”

Mr. Hollis cast around for some contribution he could make to this _fait accompli_. “Saturdays are often spent with Miss Karnstein next door...” Laura's heart sank to hear that. Normally a new governess could be relied upon to take a few days to realise there was another girl in the neighbouring house. What rotten luck!

“Splendid. Laura,” she called up the stairs, “wash your face and get your visiting clothes on. Come along, spit spot!” And she swung herself onto the bannister, slid all the way up to the landing, and marched straight past Laura and into her bedroom without so much as needing to ask the way.

Now this was all very strange indeed, thought Laura as she sloped back into her bedroom in Miss Perry's wake. Sliding _down_ the bannisters was a common event – especially when Mr Hollis was out – but up was a different matter entirely. Who was this strange new governess? The question momentarily put out of her mind even the urgent need to escape from tea with Carmilla.

Her appearance did not give anything particularly remarkable away. Her red-gold torrent of curly hair was eye-catching, but the rest of her was smart and respectable and commonplace. She looked somewhere in her twenties, except for her eyes. Her eyes saw you looking at them and refused to answer any questions at all on the subject.

“Right,” said Miss Perry after she had done her own much more searching looking at Laura, “You look fairly ready – as ready as you could be, anyway. You'll do, you'll certainly do. I'm sure Miss Karnstein will be pleased to see you.” Laura was equally sure that this was in no way possible and picked an excuse.

“I'm ill!” she burst out. She was not ill, but surely Miss Perry would not be so sure of that at a first meeting to contradict her? “I have a terrible headache, and I don't think I can go to tea today.”

Miss Perry looked at her very severely. “Nonsense. You look very well.”

“Oh but I don't _feel_ well, not inside. I don't feel myself at all.” And Laura cradled her head in one hand, trying to give the impression of one who was communicating with difficulty the enormous pain under which she laboured.

But Miss Perry only pursed her lips. Then without saying a word she picked her big carpet bag off the floor and placed it on the table in the centre of the room. She snapped the great brass clasp at the top and thrust her hand in, right down to the shoulder – although Laura could not see how this could be possible, as her arm was surely longer than the bag was deep. But before she could raise any question, Miss Perry started pulling things out of the depths of it. There was a spatula, a small collapsible puppet theatre, a strange can marked 'bear spray', a bottle labelled 'holy water' and finally – a thermometer.

“Open wide,” she said – not that she needed to, because Laura was still staring open-mouthed at the unexpected bag and its contents. Miss Perry popped the end of the thermometer into her mouth, firmly tucked her jaw closed for a moment and then withdrew it for inspection.

“As I thought: _Tiny Gay Laura_. Well, no surprises there. It says you are quite yourself,” she concluded.

“Tiny gay- what?”

“See!” And Miss Perry handed it to her to see – and there, on the side where numbers would normally be were the words _Tiny Gay Laura_.

“But Miss Perry, how can it know?”

She looked scornfully at her. “It knows, Laura, because it has no mind to be deceived. And since you are tiny, gay and Laura (I could see that myself in a trice), it simply confirms that you are feeling yourself. So no pretending to be ill! We are going to see Miss Karnstein.” And she marched Laura out of her room and downstairs – using, to Laura's disappointment, the stairs themselves.

Carmilla's mother, whose name was Mrs Morgan, left home each day at twenty-seven minutes past two because it took her exactly eighteen minutes to reach the house of her friend with whom she had tea each day and she wished to arrive at precisely a quarter to three. On days when Carmilla did not accompany her, the house staff were quite used to Laura being brought round at a moment's notice – but they always told Mrs Morgan that she arrived promptly on the strike of three, because that made her happy.

Carmilla was discovered in the drawing room lounging on a chaise-longue. Nobody could lounge like Carmilla. She folded herself around furniture as if she was a cat, and never seemed more comfortable than when she was almost falling off onto the floor.

“Ah, the cupcake,” she said when Laura was shown into the room by Joan the scullery maid. This was one of her nicknames for Laura. “Well, sadly I’ve already eaten. Oh, and a new governess! Driven the tall blond one off finally, have you? Any ideas how long this one will stay?”

Laura made a growl in the back of her throat.

“Good morning Miss Karnstein,” trilled Miss Perry. “I am Miss Perry and I’ve come to bring you along on our walk. And in answer to your question: I shall stay until the wind changes.” Carmilla’s face carefully assumed an expression of utter disinterest.

“Right, because you’re _my_ governess now.” 

But Miss Perry would not be intimidated. “You know very well how keen your mother is on you getting out and about,” she said. Carmilla did indeed know, and Laura too, how much trouble the girl would be in if Mrs Morgan found out she had been uncooperative – though how Miss Perry knew it was more of a mystery. 

“Go out?” Carmilla put on an expression of considerable martyrdom. “I'm afraid that's quite impossible, Miss Perry. I'm not feeling myself at all today. Clearly I have no other choice but to stay here on the sofa.”

Miss Perry put her hands firmly on her hips. “I do not know if there is something peculiar in the air in this part of London, but the number of girls who say they're not feeling themselves is far above the proper average for this time of year. Who, if I may enquire, _are_ you feeling?” When there was no answer to this impossible question she whipped out her thermometer from somewhere inside her coat and advanced on Carmilla. Laura watched, breathless.

“What the frilly hell is this- ow!” Carmilla tried to protest, but the governess could be very firm, and she got a small swat around the ear for the bad language.

“Hmm. As I thought, you're quite yourself. See: _Broody Gay Carmilla_.” She handed the thermometer to Carmilla to inspect and as the girl looked in sudden goggle-eyed confusion from the diagnosis up to Miss Perry's face and then down to the tube again, Miss Perry busied herself finding Carmilla's coat on the coatstand out in the hallway.

Once the strange governess was out of earshot Laura sidled closer. “Are you really?” she whispered.

“Am I what?” Carmilla snapped, putting it down finally and resuming her normal rudeness.

“Well.. gay?”

“Not that it's any of your business, cutie, but yes. So what?”

“Um. It's just I didn't know. And - me too.” Laura held her breath after the confession.

“Well, obviously.” Carmilla rolled her eyes. “The way you stare at Joan the scullery-maid's legs when she brings the tea things could be put in a waxwork museum as a monument to female depravity.” Laura coloured and folded her arms. She had very much hoped that Carmilla might have been stunned out of her normal rudeness.

“Come along girls,” ordered Miss Perry, having retrieved Carmilla's black coat from the coatstand of other similarly black clothes. “Time for our walk. Spit-spot!”

* * *

“Where are we going?” Laura asked, trying to keep pace with Miss Perry's rapid bustle through the streets. All around them were crowds of people going into the City and crowds of people coming out of the City again, all for no obvious reason.

“To see a friend,” Miss Perry replied. “And buy gingerbread.”

Laura's heart leapt. She loved gingerbread, but she was never allowed quite enough at home. Mr Hollis had Ideas about sweet foods and rotting teeth. Behind the two of them, Carmilla trudged with a frown on her face and a hunch in her shoulders.

“Hooray!” she cheered, and moved by the excitement she even ventured to address some words to her neighbour. “See, isn't this worthwhile?”

“ _Jesus_ , you're unnecessarily cheerful today, even for you,” Carmilla muttered in annoyance. Laura darted a glance at the governess, expecting a reprieve for this language, but she was preoccupied with studying the crowd for the best way through and seemed to only half-register the comment.

“Lovely boy really,” Miss Perry said vaguely. “Although he never could tie his sandals properly, and I did have to speak severely to him about playing with clay all the time.” Laura turned her gaze at Carmilla's ironically disbelieving expression. How _did_ she raise her eyebrows that high?

A gap opened up in the press as the crowd moved on, and Miss Perry hurried the girls to the other side of the street and then on past the gleaming shop windows full of delightful clothes and delicious foods and incomprehensible forms of tobacco.

“Here we are!” she announced at last as she steered the girls into a little alley. There was only one shop opening into the cramped space, with a window of dark glass almost impossible to see anything through. Miss Perry inspected her reflection, and was satisfied to see that her hatpins were all in their allotted places. The sign in gold lettering over the door read _LaFontaine & Co._

A bell jangled vaguely in the rafters as the three went in, and after a few seconds of silence, a voice called out from what seemed a very long way away, “Who goes there?”

“Just me!” called Miss Perry in reply, and then there was a great scraping and groaning as if somebody were very rapidly shoving things away and scurrying down a ladder. The door behind the black wooden counter was flung open and in hurried a small red-haired figure in a dirty leather waistcoat and rolled-up sleeves.

“Perr!” they cried and embraced Miss Perry, who took this remarkable appearance rather well. “Are these your new ones?”

“Stand up straight girls! Yes, this is my new ward Laura,” Laura did an approximation of a curtsey, “and her friend Carmilla.” Carmilla gave a vague attempt at a salute, which seemed to amuse the strange person as they saluted back. “Girls, this is LaFontaine.”

“Pleased to meet you, Miss LaFontaine,” said Laura dutifully. The red-head shifted a little and Miss Perry tutted.

“Not Miss, Laura. _LaFontaine_.”

“Oh!” said Laura in surprise. “Mr LaFontaine, I'm sorry,” she tried again, but Miss Perry took her very firmly by the shoulder and steered her into a corner of the shop. Carmilla sidled over after giving the shop owner a long appraising look.

Laura had a finger wagged at her in a disapproving way. “Just LaFontaine, Laura. Don't go making up names for them, it's very rude.”

“But are they a Mr or a Miss? Or a Mrs?” she added, shooting a glance back to check for a ring.  
“None of those,” Miss Perry said firmly.

“Well, they have to be _one_ of those,” Laura protested.

“Nonsense! Whatever gave you that idea, silly girl? Why, you might as well say there is no time between noon and midnight, or that every direction is either north or south. Now.” And she chivvied the girls forward again to where LaFontaine was leaning on the counter.

“It's quite all right,” they said before Laura could apologise. “Now: what can I do for you three today?”

Laura looked around at the bare shop. It was all in dark, almost black wood, and although there were cupboards and cabinets covering every wall there didn't seem to be the slightest hint of merchandise. “Um… gingerbread?” she asked hesitantly.

LaFontaine broke out into a large grin. “Splendid! You'll like this – you especially,” they added to Carmilla who had not said a word yet, but had only fiddled with her necklace of little silver stars. They ducked down behind the counter and came up bearing a large, plain cardboard box. “Step up!” they instructed the three visitors, and stuck their hand deep in the box.

Laura was the first in the queue, and LaFontaine withdrew their hand from the cardboard depths with something glowing caught in their fist. They passed it carefully into Laura's cupped hands and she instinctively clutched to her chest. She stepped back to stand on her own and only then did she cautiously look at what she held.

It was a star. It was made of gingerbread – not a flat cut-out from a roll of dough, but as if a dozen wafer-thin star shapes had been intersected with each other. It was like a Christmas ornament to hang on a tree, but made of the finest golden sugary gingerbread and it was glowing with a warm light. She had thought at first glance it was covered in gold paper catching the sparse and flickering gas-lights, but as she lifted it up she saw clearly how it glowed from within.

“Knew you'd like it,” smiled LaFontaine. Laura looked at the others. Miss Perry held hers with amused enjoyment, as if it were a familiar but favourite treat. Carmilla was entranced. She had dropped her scowl and her sarcasm and bore an expression of utter wonder at the star she held in her hands. Its light glinted off the silver star-shapes on her necklace and threw her cheekbones into strong relief.

Laura lifted it to her mouth and then paused, uncertain. “I almost don't want to eat it,” she said to nobody in particular.

“Oh, but you must,” said LaFontaine. “Or else you won't see what happens next. Keep your lips shut.” They picked a star of their own out of the box and with a flourish popped it into their mouth. Miss Perry crunched hers likewise. Laura watched Carmilla, then when she saw how the other girl didn't want to relinquish the beautiful object, opened her mouth and placed the star gently on her tongue. Encouraged, Carmilla did likewise.

It tasted perfect. The ginger was fresh and strong without being overpowering. The sugar was enough to satisfy even Laura's sweet tooth. The stars were crunchy and brittle, but right at the middle was a chewy core made out of a lump of crystallised ginger root.

The four of them ate in silence until Laura began to feel a warmth in her mouth. The ginger flavour grew stronger and stronger rather than weaker and weaker as would be normal. It grew warmer and warmer insider her mouth and she started to feel distinctly uncomfortable.

LaFontaine was looking at her in amusement. “Looks like you're first,” they said unclearly, keeping their own lips sealed shut. Miss Perry nodded, and Laura saw Carmilla's eyes widen as they fixed on her mouth. She wondered vaguely if she had a smudge on her lips or something.  
The heat on her tongue grow great indeed and she took several deep breaths through her nose hoping it would go away. 

And then Laura realised that Carmilla was looking at her because her cheeks were glowing. They had become bright enough now that she could see light on the palms of her hands when she raised them to her face. LaFontaine and Miss Perry's mouths were beginning to glow as well - and when Carmilla had a half-second lapse of concentration and let her lips open a fraction of an inch, a dazzling shaft of light almost blinded Laura.

Alarmed, she looked to LaFontaine for reassurance. They waved their arms in a circle, fluttering their hands and miming drawing in a deep breath and letting it out. She breathed in deeply through her nose, held it for a moment, and then opened her mouth to let it out.

The star rushed out of her mouth. It floated on her breath like a wisp of thistledown, and bobbed in the currents of air into the middle of the room where it hung over the counter. The gingerbread had all been eaten away, but Laura couldn't see what it was made of. It was just a bright point of golden light, throwing gentle shadows into the corners of the room.

Laura watched it in amazement. Had the star been inside the gingerbread all along? She was still wondering when LaFontaine blew theirs out. The second golden star rushed through the air with practised aim. It almost collided with the first, but then the two of them spun into a whirling dance around each other. Carmilla coughed as she breathed out, and hers swung a wide discombobulated arc around the shadowy corners of LaFontaine's shop before it joined its companions in the middle. Finally Miss Perry gathered herself up and released hers – brighter than the other three and with a gentle blue tinge instead of the gold of the other three. (“Show-off,” said LaFontaine).

When the four stars were happily bobbing around in the middle of the room, LaFontaine retrieved a fan from somewhere under the desk and carefully wafted them up to the ceiling. They hung there, a perfect equilateral triangle of silver stars surrounding a central, bluish light.

Laura tore her glance away from this sight to look at the faces of the others. LaFontaine was proud, Miss Perry admiring. But Carmilla had her eyes turned up to the cobweb-covered ceiling as if in prayer. There were glints at the corner of her eyes that looked like tears, and Laura had never before seen her look so happy.

* * *

Well, you can imagine how different the next morning was for Laura. She did not hide under the covers or pretend to still be sleeping when Miss Perry came in. In fact she was already awake and getting dressed, excited with what the day might bring. And when Miss Perry announced that they would take a walk in the park that morning, she didn't think for a moment about planning to give her new governess the slip. She didn't even raise an objection when she was steered left coming out of her gate and hustled forward to ring on the next-door bell to ask for Carmilla. Even her grumpy neighbour wouldn't spoil whatever was coming next.

(Although if she had been thinking _quite_ clearly she would have realised that even without the promise of an adventure, she didn't find the thought of Carmilla as tiresome today as she had yesterday. Watching somebody cry with happiness at the sight of her very own star will do that.)

It turned out that Carmilla was likewise prepared to put complaining to one side. And even when Miss Perry suggested she bring her sketchbook – something Laura had never even known existed – she made no objection worse than raising an eyebrow.

“It's a shame spring isn't here properly yet,” Laura said when they had found a spot to rest in the middle of the cool but gently-greening park. “It's always so bare this time of year.”

“The trees are waiting for the birds,” Miss Perry informed her in a tone of authority. “They don't like to wake up until there's somebody to sing to them.” There was a sort of subdued contemptuous snort from Carmilla, which spurred Miss Perry into a retort.

“Well,” she said, sounding a little offended at the scoffing, “if you're so uninterested in waiting for spring to properly begin… show me your sketchbook.”

Carmilla looked sulky, hesitated, but then passed it over. Miss Perry flicked through the pages with Laura peering over her shoulder. The drawings and watercolours were really very good. They showed a variety of scenes – houses in the country, a seaside which resembled the east coast, and many of the park itself at different times of the year.

Finally she found one she liked, the park seen from a spot not far from where they sat now. The bright colours of flowering summer filled the centre of the page, while towards the edges it tailed off into pencil outlines and then into unmarked paper. Miss Perry laid it on the ground, stood up and tapped her umbrella on the middle of the page.

Laura blinked. She was sitting exactly where she had been, just off from the winding path through the shrubbery. Only now it was high summer and the park was alive with the shining of flowers and chattering of birds. The sunlit grass stretched out around them, all the way to-

“Holy-” she began.

“Yeah,” breathed Carmilla next to her. The park faded away at the edge. First the colour left it, and then the bare pencil-lines continued in ever-vaguer hints until, almost out of sight, a great expanse of whiteness opened up.

“How charming,” commented Miss Perry, if she wandered into paintings every day. “You really have caught the play of shadow, Miss Karnstein.” She sighed in pleasure. “Now run along and play, why not?”

Laura knew she could run. She could – and had – put half a mile between her and a watchful governess before they even noticed she was gone. But so rarely did she get encouraged to that in her excitement she found herself tugging Carmilla's hand to challenger her to a race.

“Come on, catch me!” she challenged her. “Bet you I can get to the white blank page before you're even on the pencilled-in bits!” And Laura took off, feet pounding on the springing grass. A flock of goldfinches were thrown up in shock in front of her approaching strides and she absorbed their flashing yellow and red flight in delight.

It was very strange, running to the edge of the picture. Everything started to turn white – she had expected that much – but the horizon was the oddest of all. It seemed to fall away from her in all directions, as if not just the landscape but the very fabric of the world was dropping off. She slowed down and stood on the edge of the world.

Behind her, Carmilla's running footsteps got closer and closer. “Caught you,” she puffed when eventually she arrived.

“Well done. Any idea how we get across to the next page?” Laura said. She noticed with satisfaction that the other girl was much more flustered from the run than she herself. There was even a pinkness in her cheeks that she'd never worn before. It was rather nice, actually.

“I'm sure Miss Curly will know,” drawled Carmilla.

And sure enough she did. Miss Perry had not been left behind because she was slow. Rather, she had stayed behind to pull out Carmilla's own sketching kit from her carpet bag where she'd quickly stashed it. And arriving a little afterwards with a pencil (ordinary size, Laura noticed – and how did _that_ work?) she led the way.

The thing about blank paper – the truly wonderful thing, as any artist knows – is that it can be anything. So Miss Perry knelt down and drew the smallest seed on the plain heavy paper, and then a little flowerpot to hold it.

“Stand back,” she said. But the girls needed not telling, for the ground started to rumble and then with a mighty crash the beanstalk shot out of the pasty white soil. It turned green and tangly as it flew a great arch across the white sky and disappeared into the haze on the other side. With a cry of excitement, Laura launched herself onto the first leaf and scrambled upwards. It was wide enough to run on, and somehow her feet stuck to it as if whatever was under her feet was always downwards.

She ran through empty space around her until the great winding stalk bent down again and there opening up below her was the next page. It was a sunlit country scene under a cloudless blue sky. She landed on the springy long grass and heard Carmilla jump down from far above, landing neatly like a cat. She looked around and laughed, and the laugh kept coming and coming until she thought it might tear the scene around her into scatterings of colour. Carmilla came to stand beside her, and the happiest widest smile grew on her lips as she watched Laura laughing.

They started running at the same time, skirting the edge of a wood heavy with wild garlic and rambling dog-roses before veering right into a rolling meadow with scattered trees. Miss Perry had been left far behind and everything spun around her in the landscape of Carmilla's making.  
But then the tree in front of her burst open before her eyes. She was showered with water and paint and thrown back onto the grass. Disoriented, she stared at what was left of the oak – vague, smoky and bleeding out at the edges.

“What?” cried Carmilla.

“It's raining!”

Laura was right. The next raindrop fell to their right, exploding a patch of cowslips into a swirling puddle of green and yellow.

“Laura! Under cover!” Carmilla was pointing to the woods behind them, but Laura shook her head.

“It's not coming from up _there_ ,” she pointed at the bright blue and cloudless sky. “It's from outside the picture!” And as soon as she said it, a series of giant drops hit the woods themselves, and the girls jumped at the sights of the whole wall of trees begin to wave and flow forward in a loose mass.

“We need to find Miss Perry.” Carmilla and Laura sprinted back the way they'd come, jumping left and right as the landscape turn grey and soaking wet around them. The field began buckling as the paper curled and rippled in the rainstorm and more than once they were hit by flying globs of rain.

“Well, that's quite enough of that!” said Miss Perry sharply, marching up from the great tangle where her beanstalk plunged its way back into the ground. “You'll catch cold.” She tapped her umbrella on the ground imperiously and Laura suddenly became aware that she was tangled in Carmilla's arms, the two of them standing soaking wet in the middle of the park with the painting lying open on the grass beside them and rain falling from the ashy sky. The watercolours on the sketchbook were running heavily and the landscape had lost most of its focus. Carmilla bent down to touch the surface. It was damp, and she withdrew blue-stained fingers.

Miss Perry bustled around them, packing things into her carpetbag and unfurling her umbrella – which seemed much larger than it had been when last it had been seen. She gathered the girls around her and marched at a military pace for Number Three Hundred and Eight, the nearest house of the two.

“Get changed, Miss Karnstein, you'll catch your death of cold. Spit spot! And lend Laura something, just for now. I have some medicine for just such an occasion.” She flung herself into her remarkable bag and began sorting through, the sounds coming from out of its depths rather heavier than is normal for handbags.

“Do we have to have medicine?” Laura sighed. “We were only in the rain for a moment.” All manner of syrups and tinctures she hated, because they all tasted like carbolic soap and overcooked cabbage.

Miss Perry pursed her lips. “Nevertheless. One cannot be too careful. Here.” She handed both girls a spoon, and took one herself to keep them company. Carefully she poured out a few drops from the bottle into each of them.

Now a very strange thing happened when Laura looked at her spoon next to Carmilla's. _Her_ spoon had a pale watery purple colour with strange little bubbles. But Carmilla's was yellowish with lots and lots of little bubbles all bursting as fast as they could. She watched in confusion as Miss Perry poured her own dose – it turned out bright red and syrupy.

“Grape soda!” she exclaimed as she tasted her medicine. “I love soda. Much nicer than horrible carbolic!”

Carmilla frowned and tried her own. “Champagne. Beautiful,” she said and added, “They served champagne at the first party I ever attended.”

“Rum punch,” pronounced Miss Perry of her own. “Most satisfactory.”

So in the end, everyone was quite happy about the medicine, but Laura was not allowed a second helping.

* * *

Later that night, when she had gone to bed and then got up again, Laura drifted across her bedroom to look out over the park. On her left, a window of Number Three-Hundred and Eight was ablaze in light. Thin net curtains shrouded the inside, but she could see Carmilla's gauzy silhouette standing there. It occurred to her then that she'd never seen her like this from her own house. If she had pushed the thought further she would have discovered that the other girl had always remained carefully out of sight before.

She thought that her watching was itself watched, and then confirmed it when Carmilla's silhouette against the window raised its arm and pointed at the sky across the park. Laura followed her direction and tried to pick out its object. Slowly, she saw framed within the gently drifting clouds what Carmilla had seen.

Hanging in the sky with all the clarity they had worn against the ceiling of LaFontaine's shop were three gently pulsing stars in a neat equilateral triangle, and right in the middle a particularly bright one with a bluish tint.


	2. The West Wind

It was the second Tuesday after Miss Perry came with the East Wind and things had gone Wrong.

Mr Hollis had gone off to the City on Monday morning (as he did every weekday), but when he came back he was full of news of a terribly inconvenient kind. The bank at which he worked had wanted to send somebody to Cornwall for the day in order to sit in a chair while a meeting went on, but the man chosen to do the sitting had very thoughtlessly met the love of his life on Sunday afternoon and eloped. Mr Hollis was therefore given a ticket for a very early train from Paddington station on Tuesday morning and the name of a nice inn in Boscastle. 

This was not quite helpful because, as you may remember, every second Tuesday was Miss Perry's day off – and there was nobody else to take care of Laura. But Miss Perry was reminded very firmly that _she_ had informed Mr Hollis that her day off would be on a Tuesday, and it was really her fault for not checking when the cook and the manservant had _their_ days off: which was Tuesday in both cases because they liked to go to a café together and sit opposite each other and not admit how they felt.

So Mr Hollis had gone round to see Mrs Morgan and ask if Laura could be taken care of at Number Three Hundred and Eight. But Mrs Morgan was in even more of a state. Her eldest and favourite son Will had fallen ill of the measles at his home in Brighton, so she had resolved to go and stay with him until it was over. Since she was devoted to Precision in her life, and since nobody who had not met her exacting standards for employment could be expected to come within a whisker of this, her chosen method of travel was to uproot every single servant and convey them to the coast for the week. This left Carmilla at a loose end, because she had not had measles before and could not be let near her brother.

But since with much sighing and muttering under her breath Miss Perry had agreed to look after Laura for the day until Mr Hollis returned, Carmilla at least had something to do for the time being. Miss Perry had insisted, however, that she would not be giving up her appointments for the day and the girls would just have to tag along and stay quiet. And so they tramped silently behind Miss Perry as she led them to an extremely smart part of town and gave her name at the door of the most gigantic mansion.

The room they were pointed into by a pale silent servant was a profusion of luxury and slight menace, all densely-patterned burgundy wallpaper and heavy hangings. Right in the middle of the room a dark, glamorous woman reclined on the sofa, eating chocolates in a way that made Laura feel obscurely that she should be blushing.

“Lola,” smiled the woman when the visitors entered. She had a remarkable smile. It was very large, and so very bright that it might just have cast shadows. But then the gleam faded when Laura and Carmilla slowly crept into the room after Miss Perry. “Oh, you've brought your latest pets. How... adorably domestic.”

“Mattie, I'm sorry,” said Miss Perry, bustling across the room to take the woman's hands. “It was meant to be my day off, but well – these things happen to the best of us. They're quite happy to sit quietly and make their own entertainment if we need to, um, discuss things.” And to Laura's amazement she actually blushed. Not only that, she had paused in her speech and even sounded slightly ashamed. 

The woman gave Miss Perry's hands a squeeze and then approached the girls. She had a stealthy, predatory walk and Laura did not feel that she would be the kind of person it would be good to meet alone. She inspected them both, but they seemed to pass muster and she even extended a hand to touch Carmilla gently under the chin. 

“Matska Belmonde,” she announced, meandering gracefully over to ring the bell. “But you can call me Mattie. And I must say dear Lola's taste in company is improving. Much better than that _dreary_ bespectacled creature I spotted her with when we encountered each other in the park last month.” This last was accompanied with a smirk over her shoulder to where Miss Perry was putting down her things and fussing with her clothes a little. 

“Now girls,” continued Mattie, “I'm sure you would prove mildly diverting if I had the time, but Lola and I have things to discuss in private. Her day off, you know – we so rarely have a chance to. Tea will arrive shortly. Amuse yourself in whatever way seems best to you.” And without another word she glided out of the room, scooping Miss Perry up as she went.

“What a peculiar woman,” said Laura, when the tea had been brought in by the silent servant along with an enormous array of cakes.

“I like her,” said Carmilla. “She has poise.”

“You like anyone who sneers at people.” Laura beamed across the table.

Carmilla's reply came with a flash of a bright smile. “Oh, shut up and pour the tea, cupcake.”

From this you may see that the relationship between the two girls was not what it had been two weeks before. Carmilla was still rude and grumpy, it was true, but Laura did not find herself minding it so much any more. Sometimes it even made her laugh. And Laura was still bright and cheerful and energetic – but Carmilla didn't complain about that any more. Sometimes she even smiled along.

You may perhaps suspect this was due to Miss Perry. And surely that was an important part of it - after all, the girls had been through so many strange things together that they were bound to have been changed a little themselves. But in truth, there is nothing so strange or remarkable as seeing another side of a person, and all the recent variety had allowed them plenty of opportunity for that.

So when Laura took a fourth raspberry-jam cake (in her defence, Miss Perry had been gone with the strange Mattie woman for a good long time and the tea things kept being quietly replenished) and Carmilla told her off for her excessively sweet tooth, she raised her eyebrows conspiratorially and smiled with her eyes as well as her mouth. And so Laura giggled, and then pointed out that Carmilla could hardly talk given her habit of taking sugar lumps and crunching them in her teeth.

“What are you going to do with the house to yourself,” Laura asked when she had finished watching Carmilla lap up the last crumbs.

“Don't know,” said Carmilla. “Suppose I'll mooch around a bit.”

“I'll come and collect you every morning!” Laura reminded her. And Carmilla smiled widely and toothily to that – which was a new thing indeed. It was rather nice, and Laura found herself saying something else. “Actually, you should come stay with us! It'd be ridiculous for you to try and make do when we're only next door. Come and stay!”

Carmilla looked down slowly at the tablecloth and fiddled with the hem a bit. “I think I might like that very much,” she said slowly.

And when she said that, so slow and soft and shy, a very strange thing happened to Laura. She felt like the floor had dropped just a fraction of an inch very suddenly but without making a sound. There was no disturbance to the tea-table or the bookshelves, but her stomach did a little swoop and her heart echoed it. She opened her mouth to say something about this to Carmilla but was quickly seized by uncertainty as to whether it was the kind of thing to say.

Carmilla saw her struggling with words and seemed to having something similar going on, because she darted her eyes between her own hands and Laura's very rapidly in succession. There was a twitching of her fingers and she was just reaching forward when the door opened and Mattie re-emerged with Miss Perry in her wake. 

Mattie beamed radiantly at the girls, and floated through the room with every sign of satisfaction. She wore the velvet gown still, but Carmilla's observant artist eye noticed how her earrings had been abandoned and her necklace was nowhere to be see. 

Miss Perry came into the room a little after, looking somewhat flushed and still in the middle of tying a silk scarf around her neck. Her hair had a certain raggedness to it, as if the two had stood out on the balcony in a high wind. But she was smiling gently and radiated a certain appearance of contentment which neither of the girls could quite understand.

“Laura!” she exclaimed when she saw the mountain of crumbs on her plate and smears of jam round her mouth. “That's not good for you, you know. Although at least it's not mass-produced confectionery.”

“Raspberry is a fruit!” Laura pointed out. “I'm avoiding scurvy.”

Miss Perry shook her head. “What will Carmilla think of you?”

Carmilla made a face of wide eyes and raised brows. “I am quite shocked, Miss Perry,” she said in as close to an innocent voice as she could manage. “I think it must be a terrible fate to be a cupcake around Laura.”

“Does that mean you'll stop addressing me as 'cupcake', Carm? It'd be cannibalism,” shot back Laura, and was satisfied at the reaction to the nickname.

“Oh, I think that's still fitting,” said Mattie with amusement. “It's all the same in the end, to eat or be eaten. No reason you can't do both, is there, Lola?” 

Watching Miss Perry blush scarlet was quite a sight.

* * *

It was a very small pond, and it was not immediately obvious to Laura how a house-sized anglerfish called Lophiiformes could possibly be living at the bottom. But the grey-haired, stooping figure Miss Perry had introduced as Baron Vordenberg was adamant that a great scaly monster lived at the bottom of his garden pond and really, who was she to disagree?

“How are you planning to find it?” asked Carmilla.

“Well, young fraulein, that is the cunning part,” said the Baron in his relentlessly pedantic tone. “You see, when I was in the Navy (happy days!) we had a way of safely transporting ships to distant harbours by putting them in bottles. Hmm – bottles! No use for battles, of course, but for routine transfers nothing could beat it. Why, I remember once the great Admiral Nelson got the entire Mediterranean fleet into a half-empty bottle of Calvados for the voyage home. And the brandy was still drinkable afterwards, with only a slight tang of salt and tar! But it-” Laura let her attention wander as the story showed no sign of ending. Instead, she watched Carmilla.

She had found herself watching Carmilla quite a lot in the last few days. Which was odd, because the girl was staying with her and so there was hardly a shortage of Carmilla around her that had to be made up for. But there did always seem to be more things to look at. For instance, her hair did a lot. It curled loosely and writhed around her shoulders and it was all Laura could do sometimes to not take hold of a handful of it. And then there was the matter of how she looked fresh and pink (or at least less white) from the shower. That was something which needed a lot of close consideration – for some reason.

“-which, to cut a long story short, means that the supply of suitable glass has entirely vanished. And then I thought – why not call on your _charming_ Fraulein Perry for assistance? Because, if I rememeber rightly, she has her own way of shrinking things.”

Miss Perry paced slowly around the pond. It was perhaps five feet across and covered in pond weed. “Have you much tackle, Baron?” she asked. He indicated a truly gigantic fishing rod and net lying by the side of his house and demonstrated eagerly how they could be disassembled into parts. She nodded.

“Well then.” She put her omnipresent carpet bag onto the ground and snapped open the brass clasps. “You first, Baron.”

Laura watched in incomprehension as he wrapped his broken-up rod in oilskin and came to stand next to the bag. Then he lowered one leg inside, experimentally. Miss Perry made a gesture to hurry him up and, having found his experiment a success, Baron Vordenberg folded himself into the bag's depths one leg at a time. It was a tight fit, and he shuffled himself inside rather as if her were putting on trousers without quite enough give in the waist, but eventually only the crown of his head poked out, with a few fingers clutching the sides.

“Geronimo!” he said, and let go. There was a brief silence before a crash sounded itself from deep inside the bag. “Most curious approach to interior design,” he called upwards. “Reminds me of a family I knew in Novgorod-”

“You next, Laura. Come along, spit spot!”

Hesitantly Laura lowered one patent-leather covered shoe into the empty space. Thinking about how she used to get down from the attic through the trap door she placed one hand on each side of the bag and hung herself over the mouth. Well, she had done sillier things in the past -and so she let go.

The floor was not too far below, but she wasn't expecting it and the shock went through her legs before she remembered to let her knees bend. When she was sure the falling was over she could take stock of her surroundings. The floor did seem to be made of wood, but the walls were of bulging heavy fabric and yet stiffened beyond what they had been when outside of the bag. Baron Vordenberg was sitting on the floor resting his back against the wall and she was just about to ask where all Miss Perry's possessions had got to when Carmilla landed half on top of her.

They were almost the same height as each other, but Carmilla had fallen a little off-centre, with her face overlapping Laura's by only a inch. She didn't roll off, and Laura became insistently conscious of the breath gently tickling her collarbone. She could – and there was no reason for her at all to think this, but she did – she could just turn her head slightly and they would be cheek to cheek, and Carmilla wasn't moving away, so-

This touching scene was interrupted by the landing of Miss Perry next to them. Laura and Carmilla  
scrabbled to their feet blushing and dusted themselves off as best they could.

“But, Miss Perry!” said Laura. “You still have your bag!” And indeed, she was clutching the same heavy brown bag with brass clasps which they were at that very moment standing inside.

“Well of course,” she said, apparently surprised by this highly naïve comment. “How else would we be able to choose our direction? Ready, Baron?” she added to Vordenberg, who was struggling to his feet. He nodded.

Abruptly Miss Perry threw the bag across the floor to the Baron. Laura didn't see whether he caught it because the moment it left Miss Perry's hands she felt the entire room judder and she was toppled back onto the rough boards by the acceleration.

“Are we..?” she began.

“Flying through the air because Miss Curly threw the bag that we're in across the garden? Yeah. Which means buckle up creampuff, because-”

There was an almighty splash as the bag hit the surface of the pond and began sinking through the water. It was fortunate indeed that although made of rough carpet it proved impervious to water (which was inexplicable, but a lesser kind of inexplicable than the situation as a whole and therefore it didn't need to be worried about).

After some difficult and uncomfortable shaking the bag settled down to swaying gently from side to side as it sank down through the pond. Baron Vordenberg said it was slightly disappointing that there weren't windows in the sides to see out of, and Miss Perry became slightly offended at this criticism of her luggage. After a minute or two of gentle wavering, there was a scraping sound and the floor bent in the middle.

“We have reached the bottom,” said Miss Perry.

“The caves!” exclaimed Vordenberg and sprang to his feet. “We must have lodged against the rocks. Adventure awaits!”

“Or we could have sunk into the mud at the bottom and are now stuck in bottomless water,” said Carmilla. Vordenberg seemed not to have thought of this and grew suddenly thoughtful. He turned his excited jump into a languid lean against the wall.

“Who wants to go out first?” he asked, offering the position of first-to-drown to the audience.

“I will,” said Miss Perry, “since I at least have some common sense. _Obviously_ we have come safely to the caves because we have come in _my bag_. What do they teach you in school?” And she plumped her bag – the one she was carrying – firmly on the floor and clicked open the clasps. Above them the roof opened and she unfurled her umbrella. 

A gust of recirculating subterranean air took her up, and then the remaining three had the unusual experience of being plucked out of a carpet bag by a hand bigger than their own bodies. This was rather disturbing, but after the indignity was over the four adventurers stood on the muddy floor of a deep cave lit only by eerie luminescence and inspected their new environment.

“Hold it!” shouted an imperious voice, and before anybody could see what was happening there was a spear. A very large spear, with a very sharp point, aimed at each of their throats in turn. It was held, it slowly dawned on them, by a towering creature with red hair and a ferocious expression. Her arms were bare and left no doubt that she could use the spear if needed.

“Right. So. Who have we got here?” The tall woman marched down the line. “Baron Munchausen. Miss Painfully Respectable. Sulky McEyebrows... and who are you?”

Laura looked up, and then further up. She was an exceptionally tall figure, with a great mass of flame-coloured hair, dressed in form-fitting leathers. The spear clutched in her hand was even taller than Laura herself.

“I'm Laura,” she managed to squeak out in reply.

“Laura,” said the huntress, and stuck out a hand. “Danny.”

Laura shook apprehensively, and met Danny's startlingly pure grey eyes. She was very beautiful when not snarling, and this almost distracted her from the corner of her eye, where Carmilla's fist was bunching.

“Um, hello,” she said. “Nice to meet you. How do you do? Um... why are you carrying a spear?”

“I am,” Danny said, “on the trail of the most elusive and deadly Lophiiformes. I've been tracking it for some days now, and when I have found it I shall catch it and take its light as a trophy.” She looked proudly at Laura when she said this, and seemed to be waiting for her to be impressed.

However, it was Vordenberg who spoke. “Lophiiformes? Pah! We shall see about that, rude accosting fraulein. The anglerfish is mine – the cap on my hunting career, the proof that I, Cornelius Hans Albrecht, Lugenbaron von Vordenberg have not lost my touch as the young fools say.”

Danny rounded on him. “The anglerfish is mine, old man. By right.” She brandished her bare forearm to show a scattering of teeth marks in a strange pattern. “I am Danny Lawrence, who hunted the ambiguous puzuma and carried its pelt out of the desert.”

Vordenberg drew himself up. “I have a sphinx's head over my fireplace, callow girl!”

“I rode the last dragon in Romania.”

“Ate the phoenix. With ketchup - most delicious!”

“Tamed the frumious bandersnatch.”

“That's quite enough!” snapped Miss Perry. “Danny, we are all very impressed with your skills. Baron, I don't for one minute believe that about the phoenix, but your record as a hunter speaks for itself. Have you considered for a moment that until we find the fish there is no point arguing about who gets the credit? You can take turns when we locate its lair.”

This diffused tensions, if not suspicions, for the moment, and a short murmured conference agreed that a passage leading slightly downwards had the best chance. Miss Perry bustled ahead as if she were hurrying through crowds in town. Vordenberg stalked behind her, shooting darting glances to either side. Danny fell into step beside Laura and soon the conversation was growing between them. She asked all manner of questions about Laura's life, and Laura found herself rather liking Danny. Carmilla said little but as Laura and Danny's conversation involved more and more laughing, she started putting out more and more sarcastic comments to puncture it. Laura grew rather annoyed with her.

Up ahead, Vordenberg stiffened and held up a hand to halt the part. With a wavering finger he pointed at a looming shape in the half-lit darkness.

“The fish!” said Miss Perry.

And it was. The anglerfish was the size of a house (even so large a house as Laura's), with a great glowing white light hanging from a stalk on its forehead. It sculled in the shallow waters covering the floor of a vast cavern opening up around them.

“Finally,” muttered Carmilla. “Big Red can go do her girl-impressing thing.”

“What's up with you?” Laura asked.

Carmilla shuffled her feet and took a while to reply. “Nothing. Just didn't like the way she's all over you. That's all. Don't worry, it doesn't matter.” 

Laura didn't push any further. In any case, it was hardly the time. The anglerfish was floundering in the water ahead and the hunters were readying their gear. Danny was the first to spring forward, spear at the ready. Vordenberg rummaged in his tackle bag, realising the rod would be of no use. Instead he retrieved a trident and a net, and the two hunters advanced, watchful of each other as well as the fish.

“I can't look,” said Laura suddenly. “They can't kill it! What's it done to them?” It had all been fun and games before they actually saw the creature, but now it seemed much less like an adventure and much more like an unpleasantness.

Carmilla fidgeted for a bit. She made up her mind about something and sidled over to Miss Perry.

“Was what the Baron said about ships in bottles true?” she asked.

“Hmm? Well, not quite. His story about the whole fleet in a single bottle of Calvados is clearly implausible. But one ship in one bottle – that can be done. If you have the right kind of bottle.” She hooked a finger into her hair and uncurled one of the strands. “I'm sure my hair needs some adjusting,” she mused.

Carmilla took the hint. “Let me hold your bag while you sort it out, Miss Perry.” She took it from the governess's hand and snapped the clasps open. Now, how did Miss Perry find the thing she wanted in such an endless depth? She plunged her hand in and grabbed the first thing she touched, hoping for the best.

“Thought that might work,” she said to herself. Miss Perry seemed not to hear her, and Laura was too busy anxiously watching the advancing figures of Danny and Vordenberg.

Carmilla took a breath, chose her path, and sprinted. The cavern floor was slippery, but she abandoned caution and soon caught up with the more tentative hunters. There was shouting – from Danny, from Vordenberg, from Laura – but she ignored it all and focused on throwing herself forward to press the open mouth of the bottle to Lophiiformes' scales.

What followed was not easily visualised. But at the end of the slurping sounds and strange warpings of space, she found herself sitting in a rock pool, covered in fishy water and clutching a round, clear bottle containing a very tiny anglerfish, no bigger than a hen's egg.

“Mine!” she proclaimed to Danny and Vordenberg. “I caught it, fair and square. Didn't even have to kill it.” She stumbled past their baffled expressions and handed the bottle to Laura. 

“For you, cupcake,” she said. “Since you seem to like huntresses today.”

Laura gazed at the fish in wonder, and then back at Carmilla's face with wide eyes. Nothing seemed adequate to say, so she just kissed her on the cheek and watched the grumpiness fall away.

* * *

There was a particular feel in the air one day towards the end of that same week. The cherry trees were starting to show just a little pink around their buds, and they were shaking in a way just a little different than they had been. The wind was beginning to change.

But it hadn't changed yet, and Miss Perry gave the weathercock on the top of Number Three-Hundred and Seven a very serious look before leading Laura and Carmilla out of the gate for their visit to the library.

But she did not take them to the normal library, which was a dark building on the other side of the park where two very old men wearing two extremely old suits told everybody very loudly that they should be quiet. Instead she marched through the streets over in the direction of the gasworks and turned sharply down so many alleys that Laura nearly twisted her ankle twice trying to keep up with her.

The Library – and they knew it was the library because the words were written in flaking gold paint over the door – was a tumble-down brick building, not very wide, hiding between a pawnbrokers and a rather dull church advertising the immoderate joy of temperance. It was not a promising street.

Miss Perry shuffled the two girls into the gloom and rapped on the dusty floorboards with the point of her umbrella. There was the sound of running footsteps from the other side of the cracked wooden panelling to their left. Then, oddly, the footsteps disappeared from the left and reappeared from somewhere above the ceiling in the direction of a glazed-tile fireplace. And they seemed to be getting further and further away until a curtain at the far end of the gloomy bare room was thrust aside and in hurried a dark-haired young man with an anxious face bearing a pile of books.

“Ah,” he said when he saw the three. “Miss Perry, I'm most- most glad to see you. Do excuse me a moment, these are meant to go...” he trailed off. “Where _are_ they meant to go?”

“I thought you were going to get this place organised, JP,” said Miss Perry – but not unkindly. “Girls, this is Mr JP Armitage, the librarian. JP, these are Laura and Carmilla.”

He thumped the books onto the mantelpiece and insinuated himself over to shake hands cautiously.

“I was _trying_ to get things organised,” he said, “but the shelves will go around having ideas of their own. There was a civil war started between palaeontology and archaeology earlier and I still haven't brokered a truce.” He emitted a sigh.

“Is it very difficult to find where your books should go?” asked Laura. “It seems a very small library.”

Miss Perry tutted at this potentially emasculating comment, but JP nodded ruefully. “It does _seem_ a small library,” he admitted, “but it isn't. Goes all round. Up and down. Left and right. Front and back. In and out. Now and then. Take those books over there. Any guesses?”

Carmilla sidled over to the mantelpiece and sorted through the pile. Without saying a word, she handed them to Laura, who read the titles with growing confusion.

“ _Urban Planning for Nomads_ ,” she recited. “ _The History of the Wheel in Pre-Columbian America. Old-World Cacti in Comparison_. How odd. Are they any good?”

JP waved his hands non-committally. “I couldn't settle to the first. The second – well, it didn't really go anywhere. And there wasn't a lot in the third. But it's the filing that's driving me to distraction. There was an, um, incident in the counterfactual gallery.” He looked down at the floor.

Miss Perry narrowed her eyes. “Did you, by any chance – and I want an honest answer, JP – follow LaFontaine's suggestion about making a catalogue to list every book which does _not_ refer to itself? The one I warned you specifically not to produce?”

He continued inspecting his shoes, despite their being especially well-polished. “...yes,” he admitted finally.

“And what did this lead to?”

“A paradox, Miss Perry. I got it under control, but things are still out of order. The war in the upper stacks started while I was distracted.” He the took books from Laura's arms. “Right. _This_ one's oxymoronic. That's a historical counterfactual. And that's a semantic void. We can sort this – come along.”

The library was a baffling maze of shelves and galleries, alcoves and corridors. JP led the way, pointing out items of interest along the way. Finally they found themselves in a rather empty room containing only a few bookshelves and, oddly, a phonograph emitting dance hall music. The room was, he told them, 'the central node of the upper-lower-middle floor's thirty-third intersection plane', and here he had been hoping for Miss Perry's help.

“The war is going on behind that door,” he said. “The archaeology volumes were getting the upper hand whenI was there last, but I couldn't persuade them to have mercy. Miss Perry, if those books don't calm down we'll lose the entire floor.”

“Why the music?” she asked.

“Sometimes it calms them down. Military history responds very well to Strauss. But not this time! They're really going for it. Please, Miss Perry.”

“All right, JP. I'll see what I can do. But I'm leaving the girls here, it's not safe to lead them into a war zone.”

“I'm sure we'll be fine with you,” Laura protested, but Miss Perry shook her head very firmly indeed.

“You must stay here, girls. Entertain yourselves for a while, I'm sure that won't be difficult. Why, you have an empty dance floor and music on demand!”

“Oh no, Miss Perry,” said Laura. “It'd be weird to dance with only the two of us.”

“Nonsense!” she said. “Why, there are four of you!” And she followed JP out.

Laura and Carmilla looked at each other, very confused. They glanced at the corners of the room. Were other people hiding there?”

Then she heard Carmilla gasp. There was- there was-

There was a shadow. It was Carmilla's shadow, but it wasn't doing what Carmilla herself was doing. Carmilla was standing close to Laura, her hands clutched to her chest, but her shadow was stretching and moving out into the middle of the floor. And Laura's, too, was limbering up.

Something very strange was happening to their shadows. Normally, of course, your shadow creeps very flat along the surfaces of walls and floors. But the two shadows on the floor before them rose up and stood confidently upright in the middle of the room. The music from the phonograph played on and they stretched out their arms to invite the girls to dance. Laura and Carmilla exchanged a look, and accepted.

It was a very peculiar feeling, dancing with her own shadow. She had no weight or even the slightest resistance to Laura's touch, and she became very afraid that if she held too tight she might squeeze the shadow's waist uncomfortably tight. But there didn't seem to be any complaints and she got so caught up in the movements that she forgot to check whether or not she was standing on her partner's feet.

The measure changed, and Laura felt her shadow peel itself away from her and step back. For a moment she stood confused until she saw how Carmilla's had done the same. 

“Time to change partners?” she asked. And indeed, Carmilla's shadow took her shadow by the waist and the two shades moved into the new rhythm. Tentatively, her heart beating hard for reasons she couldn't quite explain, she opened her arms and let Carmilla herself take hold of her.

“I didn't know you could waltz,” she whispered. A smile crept up the side of Carmilla's face.

“I have my ways,” she said. “Mother would find it scandalous, of course. She hates dancing. But I love it - not that I often find someone to dance with.”

“I feel privileged. I'm not sure I know what I'm doing.”

Carmilla nodded over to her left. “Follow your shadow, she knows what's up. Somehow.”

The attention seemed only to encourage their shadows, who redoubled their efforts and whirled an intricate figure over the boards. It was all the girls could do to keep up, and Carmilla was beginning to get rather out of breath. So it was quite a relief when the measure ended, and the phonograph proceeded to play a slower number.

It was gentle but not dull. Laura felt it like the steady rising and falling of the sea, or the soft movements of a heavy curtain stirring in a breeze. Carmilla's arms around her were both so present and yet moved with her as if part of the same body, exerting no force that was not her own movement. From deep down, the rising and falling of her heart matched their turning across the floor.

“Look,” whispered Carmilla.

Their shadows had stopped dancing, but had not moved apart. Instead they curled tight against the other, and in the bouncing candlelight Laura saw their faces incline hesitatingly to meet. The hand of Carmilla's shade brushed the back of Laura's shadow's head, and they kissed.

The girls looked at each other, trying to guess.

“Yes,” breathed Laura at last, and Carmilla kissed her.

* * *

“My mother's coming back,” Carmilla said at breakfast after tearing open an envelope and staring at it blankly for a few moments. Laura felt suddenly as if she'd stepped out onto empty space.

“What?”

“Will's better. She says she's coming back tomorrow – which means later today.” Laura grabbed her hand and Carmilla squeezed her fingers.

Carmilla would have to go back home. And it had never occurred to Laura before how far away next door was. Once upon a time – three weeks ago – Carmilla could never have been far enough away for Laura's taste. But now, after three weeks of Miss Perry's adventures, and after one week of seeing her all day every day, and most of all after yesterday at the library and everything that followed – next door was too far away. 

“I don't want you to go,” she said. 

Carmilla smiled, the new smile that had appeared just after the kiss and which Laura had become intimately familiar with over the long last night. “I won't be far, creampuff. And what with Miss Curly's little outings, we'll be together before long.” She rose, kissed her on the cheek, and wandered back to her room to begin packing.

But as Laura's her mind raced and her heart chattered away, she became conscious of the patter of rain against the French windows into the back garden. It was a familiar sound and the meaning took a little while to sink in, but then she realised that the dark clouds from out the west she'd seen earlier had been blown in. The wind had changed.

The realisation was growing slowly in her mind when the door to the breakfast room opened and Miss Perry came in. She smiled hello to Laura and began moving around the room retrieving small items from the places she had stowed them. 

“Are you-?” Laura asked, her heart in her mouth.

“Yes, Laura.” She gathered up a collection of hatpins from their place in a vase and gave Lophii's jar a friendly tap on the side. Its light glowed brighter for an instant. “My employment has reached its completion with change of the wind, as I said it would.”

Laura felt the last remnant of her happiness drain away. No Miss Perry to take her on adventures with Carmilla? If there was anyone who she might have been able to talk to about her feelings for Carmilla it was her, but-

“Miss Perry, you can't go!” she burst out.

Miss Perry looked at her severely, but not unkindly. “I always said I would leave when the wind changed, did I not? And you know Laura, I think you might be a bit too old for a governess. Don't you agree?”

“Well, yes. But- but not if it's you. I like to go places with you.”

“Haven't you got Carmilla now to go places with?” she asked. “Hmm?” And Laura wondered how much of what had passed between her and Carmilla since JP's library was known to her.

She looked down and shuffled her feet. “Not if I get someone like Nanny Spielsdorf again.  
Someone like that would spoil it all before it started. We'd never be left alone to – well, you know. And Father _will_ make me get another governess. And Mrs Morgan will only let Carmilla stay over if it's an emergency again and who knows when that will be? Please don't go.”

Miss Perry didn't reply, but only hefted her carpet bag onto the table and began putting items back inside its impossible depths. This seemed to require some rearranging and she had to pull out a gnarly leather tome covered in cuneiform, a pile of candles and a copy of a newspaper before she could properly settle her boxes of cleaning materials into their proper place.

Moodily, Laura poked at the newspaper and tried to think of how to persuade her. The paper was tomorrow's _Times_ (which ordinarily would have been a matter for comment given that it should not have gone to press until a few hours later, but this could scarcely interest her today). There were plenty of advertisements for governesses and no doubt Miss Perry would be moving on to one of them. Or maybe she'd answer a call for a teacher? Or a secretary. There were plenty of jobs on offer for capable single ladies, thoughtfully laid out on the same page as offers of suitable apartments for rent.

The idea pushed up a shoot in her mind and unfurled itself into rapidly growing leaves and tendrils.

“Do you think,” she asked Miss Perry carefully, “that in the modern world it might be suitable for a young lady to live outside of her family home? With a well-chosen companion?”

“I would certainly be able to tell your father that many of the best families now follow such a course of action. A superb way to finish an education, I think, and very – oh.” She stopped, realising Laura had already left the room and there were running footsteps coming from the stairs.

“I am not sure this suggestion is quite Safe,” said Mr Hollis when it was put to him. “Living alone?”

The two parents had been assembled with much cajoling, and Laura and Carmilla had laid out a list of suggestions. Possible flats mentioned in the paper had been ringed. Rosters of arguments on the educational and social value of the plan had been presented. Miss Perry had given a statement before going back to her packing.

“Not alone,” pointed out Laura. “With Carmilla.”

“This has come quite out of the blue,” protested Mrs Morgan. “No warning! And your plans so hastily formed. What will you do all day without anybody else around?”

Carmilla had a short coughing fit for some reason, and it was left to Laura to fill in. “We both have a little money of our own to use. Carmilla will paint. And I can get a job as... a writer in a newspaper or something.”

There was a pause. “Newspapers keep very Precise schedules, I've always thought,” mused Mrs Morgan. “One with both a morning and evening edition, I hope? That would seem almost respectable...”

“And it will be Safer for Laura than with a governess,” put in Carmilla, “Because I won't need to take every second Tuesday off and can be there all the time.” She smiled to see the pieces starting to be put together in Mr Hollis' mind.

And then something very peculiar indeed happened. The wind had been growing stronger all the while the conference was going on, and they could all hear it very clearly howling up at the vent of the chimney. Down came a warm wet blast of wind, and it carried with it a scattering of loose cherry blossom, such as was being blown about in the street. And it smelt of spring, of budding flowers and new growth and happiness and possibilities. The four of them breathed it in.

Moments later, Miss Perry was almost knocked her off her feet and onto the doormat by a tiny figure bursting out into the hallway and launching her into a hug.

“Miss Perry! They said yes!”

“Splendid news, Laura. I am very glad for you.” She bent down, kissed Laura on the cheek, retrieved her dropped bag and checked her hat was firmly pinned into place over her curls.

From out of the drawing room drifted Carmilla. She looked uncertain for a moment, then settled on delivering a sort of half-bow to the governess. Miss Perry responded in kind and then opened the front door to walk out into the garden and face the Park where the blossoming cherry trees were whirling in the stiffening wind. 

“Get back inside, girls! You need to get ready and go off hunting a new life. In you go, spit spot!” Miss Perry said, but they did not move from behind her. She raised her umbrella up to catch the West Wind and then she was off, pulled up into the sky as if by a cord. Her respectably figure soared up into the air like a kite and then the clouds opened up around her, the sun shining through her hair and turning it into a red-gold halo.

Laura and Carmilla's hands found each other as they stood on the doorstep and watched the trees and the park and the whole sky dancing around the departing figure of Miss Perry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait between the first and second chapter, I got ill and then 7k words turned out to be a lot of words! Hope you enjoyed the low-stakes fluff after the last series of rather heavy fics.
> 
> The completion of this piece marks my having written 100k words of fanfic! That's longer than _The Hobbit_ \- it's a really big milestone for me. Before starting my first piece ([The Dread Secret of Castle Hollstein](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5176853/chapters/11924792)) I hadn't written a word of fiction before and the idea of writing anything at all seemed completely unattainable. It has only been possible thanks to all the feedback and support from you all. A particular thank-you must go to [rubyroth](http://archiveofourown.org/users/rubyroth) for their generous and lengthy comments, which are everything a starkadder needs for encouragement.


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